Walter J Freeman University of California at Berkeley

Each new pattern of neural activity occupies the whole bulb. It reflects

context, not information.

Spatial patterns of EEG

Walter J Freeman University of California at Berkeley

EEG pattern classification in serial conditioning:

Heraclitus was right.

Lack of invariance of brain patterns with fixed stimuli

Walter J Freeman University of California at Berkeley

• Complex partial seizures disrupt normal

behavior.

• Each inhalation opens the landscape.

• Expectancy creates attractor landscape.

• Flat EEG reflects a point attractor.

From Skarda & Freeman (1987)

Walter J Freeman University of California at Berkeley

SDx(t) vs. A(t), ECoG

Walter J Freeman University of California at Berkeley

SDx(t) vs. A(t), Simulated

Walter J Freeman University of California at Berkeley

Brain evolution

Walter J Freeman University of California at Berkeley

St. Thomas Aquinas, Hume, Intentionality

Walter J Freeman University of California at Berkeley

Elizabeth called Descartes on the mind body problem

Walter J Freeman University of California at Berkeley

The origin of voluntary action

Walter J Freeman University of California at Berkeley

Helmholtz, army surgeon, neuroscientist, 1st law of thermodynamics

Walter J Freeman University of California at Berkeley

Charles Darwin 1809-1882

“The involuntary transmission of nerve-force may or may not be

accompanied by consciousness. Why the irritation of nerve-

cells should generate or liberate nerve-force is not known; but that this is the case seems to be the conclusion arrived at by all the greatest physiologists such as

Müller, Virchow, Bernard, and so on.”

The Expression of Emotions in Man and Animals (1863) p. 70

Walter J Freeman University of California at Berkeley

Herbert Spencer 1820-1903

Conservation of Nerve Energy

It is “… an unquestionable truth that, at any moment, the existing quantity of liberated nerve-force, which in an inscrutable way

produces in us the state we call feeling, must expend itself in some direction. … An overflow of nerve-force, undirected by any motive, will

manifestly take the most habitual routes.”

Essays: Scientific and Political (1893) p. 109

Walter J Freeman University of California at Berkeley

Sigmund Freud

Displacement“[My] approach is

derived from clinical observations of

‘excessively intense’ ideas in hysteria. … I

have in mind the principle of neuronic inertia. It finds expression in a

current passing from dendrites to axon. … Memory is in contacts between the neurons that function as

barriers.”

Sigmund Freud (1893) “The Project of a

Scientific Psychology”, pp. 356-

359.

[Three years later, Foster and Sherrington named the ‘synapse’.]

Walter J Freeman University of California at Berkeley

Brain theory collapsed.

_________________________________

________

___________________________

At the beginning of the 20th century,

brain theory collapsed.

Psychiatry and neurology disintegrated.

The reason: ‘nerve energy’ is not conserved;

brains are open, dissipative systems.

Today there is still no accepted brain theory.

Walter J Freeman University of California at Berkeley

Gilbert Ryle - Category error

_________________________________

________

___________________________

Walter J Freeman University of California at Berkeley

Kohler

Walter J Freeman University of California at Berkeley

Roger Sperry

Walter J Freeman University of California at Berkeley

The rise of information theory

By the 1950s with the emergence of Computational Neural Science,

the failed doctrine of “nerve energy”

was replaced by the new doctrine of

“neural information processing”.

The power of the metaphor: Sources and sinks

Information flow rates Channel capacities

Information as Negentropy

Walter J Freeman University of California at Berkeley

Santiago Ramon y Cajal 1852-1934 Superior temporal gyrus

Information Technology begins in the neuron doctrine:

Walter J Freeman University of California at Berkeley

Rafael Lorente de Nó

The theory of neural information processing was led by Cajal’s last graduate student, Lorente de Nó.

Rafael Lorente de Nó 1901-1982

The Entorhinal Cortex, 1934

McCulloch & Pitts, 1945 Digital Computers, AI

Donald Hebb, 1949Nerve Cell Assemblies

Frank Rosenblatt, 1956 Neural Networks

Hubel and Wiesel, 1959Neurobiology

Walter J Freeman University of California at Berkeley

Classic Thermodynamics, equilibrium

Walter J Freeman University of California at Berkeley

Self-organized criticality - compare to complex plane

Walter J Freeman University of California at Berkeley

Self-organized criticality - action perception cycle

Walter J Freeman University of California at Berkeley

Conclusion

Walter J Freeman University of California at Berkeley

“I have already explained what I think of literal representation; but one cannot insist enough on this: there is no true meaning of a text. No author’s authority.

Whatever he may have wanted to say, he wrote what he wrote.

Once published, a text is like an implement that everyone can use as he chooses and according to his means: it is not certain that the maker could use it better than someone else.”

Collected Works, 1957

Paul Valéry

Paul Valéry 1871-1945

Walter J Freeman University of California at Berkeley

Acknowledgements

Walter J Freeman University of California at Berkeley40

The olfactory system

Walter J Freeman

End note

AcknowledgmentsThis work was supported by grants from NIMH (MH-06686), ONR (N00014-93-1-09380, and NSF (EIA-0130352). Human EEG and EMG data were collected and edited by Mark D. Holmes and Sampsa Vanhatalo in the EEG Clinic, Harborview Hospital, University of Washington, Seattle, and analyzed in the Dep’t of Molecular & Cell Biology in the University of California at Berkeley. Data processing and programming were by Linda Rogers and Brian Burke. The animal data were collected in collaboration withJohn Barrie and Gyöngyi Gaál.